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Friday, 9 April 2010

Pledges on children and childhood

I pledge to support children today to make tomorrow better for everyone - see email below from Action for Children. See all posts on young people here (which includes details of NSPCC, Every Disabled Child Matters, Save the Children and Gingerbread work and pledges).

Via the Political Exchange site I've also signed Plan UK's pledge to: Do what I can to ensure young people are given a voice in discussions about issues that affect the world they live in, particularly climate change; Support the campaign to ensure more girls have the chance to realise their potential and go to secondary school; Encourage more schools in my constituency to create links to schools in developing countries to share learning and turn young people into global citizens.

Also via Political Exchange I've agreed with the National Deaf Children's Society work to: Close the gap in educational attainment between deaf children and other children; Improve public services so deaf children and their families get the support they need from the start; Help deaf children in my constituency get the same opportunities as other children______________________________________________Dear Mr Vowles,

Make the future better: take your action for children now

As a prospective parliamentary candidate for the forthcoming general election, I would like you to take action for children now by pledging to support children today to make tomorrow better for everyone.

Around a million of today's children will be trapped in the same cycle of deprivation as their parents. From the moment they are born, their hopes of leading a happy and fulfilling life will diminish. Right from their first breath, they will be at risk of neglect - they will do worse at school, they are more likely to be unemployed, they are more likely to suffer mental ill health, to misuse drugs or alcohol and to end up in prison. And eventually, when they have children, the chances are the same thing will happen all over again. The costs of this to individuals, families, the State - and society as a whole - are almost unquantifiable.

But it doesn't have to be like this. Financial support alone will not solve the problem of deprivation. We are writing off their futures unless we take action now. We know what action is needed: targeted early intervention breaks the cycle of deprivation.

Please sign our pledge to support our campaign for early intervention and help us stop another generation being caught in the cycle of deprivation.

For goodness sake, no children would mean no future for human beings!!

No, Anon I'm not against people having children and have never said anything remotely like this. I have a daughter myself. What I advocate is that people the world over volunteer to have no more than 2 children - and especially in the richer [often white] world, where consumption and impact per person is many times higher than the global average.

I dont want optimum population on the basis of only certain ethnic groups having fewer children and would very strongly oppose anyone who took this line. I'm firmly anti-racist.

My stance is perfectly reasonable - given that resources are limited and environmental quality worsening. Its very important to our children and grandchildrens future that we tackle levels of consumption, impact and population in a coherent fair and coordinated way.